by Shey Stahl
He shrugged, leaning forward so his elbows were resting on his knees, his head hanging as if his neck was sore. “You seem normal enough right now.”
“Just wait.” I moved the pan around the metal crate, holding it above the flames, hoping it would magically hit the right spot. “If this damn thing doesn’t boil soon, I may turn into a less than pleasant version of myself.”
Parker chuckled, shifting around in the chair to get comfortable. “I can’t imagine a less pleasant version of you.”
“You just wait. A few weeks with me and you will probably change your mind.”
Looking over at him, I noticed he was smiling. His hand ran through his hair as he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, still smiling. “I’ll take my chances.”
We talked about the weather in Moab. I was curious having never been there, but I couldn’t focus on much of what he was saying. Instead, I was watching the shift of his body as he fidgeted with the strings on his sweatshirt and the rise and fall in his chest as he spoke.
The way he talked about the town made me eager to see the trails and the appeal they held for riders and the tiny glimpse I received into the passion Parker held for it. I only registered about every third word he said, but still, the fact that we were talking had an impact on me. It made me want to ride and take in the sights, smells, and details he was referring to. I felt like I had missed something in the conversation when he smiled, but I was absorbing his details, tasting his words as they were meant for me, a key to an undiscovered world of who he was.
Soon, Addy and Justin were up, which meant Parker quit talking to me. I began to get annoyed with their presence. It seemed anytime they were around, Parker clammed up.
“Rowan.” Justin was laughing because I still hadn’t got the water to boil. “There’s a coffee stand up the road. We can get you coffee when we stop for breakfast.”
My eyes focused on Parker who was gazing out at the campground watching a group of boys on their bikes and smiling. Though he wasn’t looking at me, I tried to glare but the smoke from the fire only made them water. “You knew there was a coffee stand, didn’t you?”
My remark drew his attention to me. His smile grew wider but he didn’t speak as he examined my face for my reaction.
I wanted to flip him off but instead settled on, “You suck.”
Stupid boy and his adorable smiling.
That stupid boy and his smiling had me confused. I couldn’t focus around that smile, and then when I looked into the entrancing eyes, I fell.
Every move he made, I fell harder and harder. It was easy to love him. How could it not be? Parker was the type of guy that was shy, but he had a confidence about him I couldn’t ignore. Those traits together were what made him so alluring to me. I wanted to know the shy boy, and I wanted to show that confident boy just how well I could handle a two-stroke, if you know what I mean.
June 21, 1997
It was shortly after nine Saturday morning when we finally finished breakfast and headed to Salt Lake City. Justin and Addy seemed to be getting along pretty well, so Parker pulled me aside when they were using the rest room before we left.
For a brief moment, my nerves got the best of me. I felt tingly all over, wondering what he was going to say to me.
“Justin wants to sit with Addy in the backseat.” His eyes dropped from mine to the gravel. “Will you sit up front with me?”
“If you want me to.” My voice sounded like a timid animal, if animals could talk.
“Well…” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, his head still bent forward, avoiding my gaze. “The only other option is the back of my truck so…” His voice faded when his eyes met mine.
“The front sounds good.”
It did sound good. It sounded awesome.
With the windows rolled down, Parker and I sat in comfortable silence while Addy and Justin did God knew what behind us. I didn’t bother looking.
Trying to break the awkwardness between us, I decided to talk about riding, dirt bike riding. Something I knew Parker would find interest in.
“How long have you been racing?”
Parker’s eyes darted to mine, surprised I was speaking to him. Shifting in the seat, I turned towards him slightly, trying to let him know I was initiating conversation.
“I started riding when I was around three,” Parker answered, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Wow, that’s young. I think I rode my first bike when I was ten. Rick got it for me for my birthday that year.”
Parker gave a nod and a soft smile, but he didn’t appear as though he was going to say anymore, so I tried a little more.
“So you started when you were three…when did you move up?”
“Move up?” His brow arched in question.
“When did you start racing Supercross?”
“I started in BMX and then I raced Motocross from nine to fourteen and started in the 125cc lite series when I was fourteen until this last year.”
“What are you racing next year?”
He was quiet for a few minutes before he shifted in his seat and leaned against the center console towards me. He lowered his voice enough so Justin and Addy couldn’t hear him. “I lost my sponsorship this last year, so we’ll see what comes up.”
Sensing he was uncomfortable with the conversation, I changed the subject. “How many times have you been to Moab?”
“Every year since I was eight…” his voice faded and then he sighed “...except for ‘95.”
I knew enough about Parker through my own discoveries that ‘95 was the year his dad died, but no one knew how he died.
I wanted to ask but I also didn’t want to make Parker uncomfortable. Surely, asking how his dad died would make him uncomfortable. Any time anyone asked why my mom was the way she was, I got uncomfortable as if it was an invasion of privacy. I didn’t want to make Parker feel that way.
From what Addy had planned, we would be in Moab until the week after the Fourth of July, and then we were heading to Anaheim, Justin’s and Parker’s home town, and then back up to Washington.
When we stopped that night, we found a campground outside Salt Lake City and set up the tents.
Parker and Justin watched in amusement when Addy and I tried to put our tents together again.
“You know, we could help,” Justin offered as he ate a bag of chips.
Parker didn’t say anything, just smiled of course. I began to think that was all the asshole was going to do, but when Addy walked to the bathrooms and Justin followed, Parker spoke again.
It was just before sunset when Parker looked up at me. “Would you…” he stopped with a sigh and looked at his feet “...Do you want to take a walk?”
I must have been staring because he suddenly started backtracking.
“We don’t have to…I just…there’s place up in the canyon to take pictures. I just thought maybe you might want a few pictures of your trip.”
Oh right, pictures. Memories. Hell yes I wanted memories of this trip.
“Yeah, sure, that would be great.” I bolted to my bag inside my tent and was back by his side within a minute.
In all my excitement, I grabbed my camera but forgot a sweatshirt.
When the sun set, I froze my ass off and was no longer excited about that trip to watch the sunset. It left me seeking warmth and wanting it from Parker, something my conscious must have planned all along when I forgot the sweatshirt.
Parker noticed and stopped walking to pull his sweatshirt off and handed it to me but never said anything.
I was so cold at that point, I didn’t care and pulled it on.
I tried not to be so obvious, but I sniffed that black sweatshirt like crazy.
Parker chuckled at his Lucas Oil sweatshirt on me, his hands buried in his dark gray shorts. “It looks good on you.”
“Thanks.” I smiled, stopping to dump the sand out of my flip-flop. “I’ve always worn sweatshirts pretty well.”
Wit
h a soft laugh, Parker stopped walking and turned to me. He half smiled at me, making me want to do things to him, naughty things.
We were just about six inches from each other. Every so often our shoulders touched when we stepped over rocks. But when he stopped, I felt a strange connection pulling me towards him. I’d never been drawn to someone the way I was to him, aside from my mom. This was different. I felt like I wanted to know him and that, strangely, I already did without trying to. As I said before, most people annoyed me. He didn’t and that annoyed me.
His eyes shined like a mirror with the moon light. “We should probably get back, huh?”
“I doubt they’ll even notice we’re gone.” Putting the lens cap back on my camera, I looked up at him. “Addy is one tracked when it comes to Justin.”
Parker laughed. “Yeah, my brother is pretty taken by Addy too.”
“It appears that way.” We could see them from our place in the canyon. Justin was sitting next to her with his arm around her looking at the fire.
We sat down beside each other on a rock when Parker nudged my shoulder with his. “He’s a good guy. You don’t have to worry about her.”
“I know…” With the darkness surrounding us again, the courage I had the other night returned. “What about you…are you a good guy?”
He was quiet longer than I expected before I finally figured he wasn’t going to answer and stood up. Parker reached out a grabbed my hand. “I can be a good guy.”
“Can or are?” I asked looking back at him. I had absolutely no experience with boys and couldn’t understand any of his responses.
The moon illuminated the side of his face, and even in the darkness, I could feel the hesitation to answer. “Can.”
It was an honest answer.
There were times when my brain told me I was getting in over my head, but I was also seventeen that summer and went wide open into whatever it was that Parker and I were forming.
“Rowan?” Parker asked when he stood up to walk back to our camp. His hand touched mine and then gripped a little harder forcing me to look at him. Our fingers intertwined, mine soft, his rough.
“Yeah?” I turned to face him, and he was suddenly mere inches from me, so close his breath was on my neck and blowing across my face.
Parker tipped his head and smiled. “Can I kiss you?” He held my stare for a moment, the nervousness in his voice was sweet knowing he was just as wary as me.
I think I nodded but I wasn’t sure what my reaction was. Closing my eyes, it felt like it was all happening so fast, but I didn’t want to stop it. I wanted this.
He was so vulnerable, so confused that I wanted to ease that.
I swallowed my nerve and all my fear and closed my eyes.
Parker’s mouth inched closer to mine, and then he kissed me.
The only thing I remember was how amazing it felt. It was so much more than I ever imagined it would be, and believe me, I imagined it a time or two.
My first kiss happened when I was thirteen, and that was nothing like this. Parker seemed to be some sort of an expert. He was gentle but provided just enough force to let me know he wanted the kiss. His breathing was ragged against my lips as though he was trying to control it but couldn’t. Obviously, he wanted the kiss and that did things to me, made me feel more.
To be fair, my breathing wasn’t any better. My arms wrapped around his neck tightly, like I had the poor boy in a headlock. Stretching on my tiptoes, I leaned into the kiss with as much of myself as I could. Our lips fumbled at first, trying to make sense of this kiss and its context.
Parker was the first to let his tongue graze my bottom lip ever so slightly. His arms tightened around my waist, holding me securely against the hard sculpted lines of his chest.
The kiss seemed to last forever, but not nearly long enough before we pulled away. Parker looked down at me with curiosity.
“I’ve always wondered about that,” I whispered against his lips, wondering where the shy side of me disappeared to.
“I’ve always thought about that,” he whispered, pressing his lips to mine once more. He let out a little gasping laugh, and I could almost feel the heat rising between us.
“Well, now we both know,” was my next response when he pulled back again.
Parker smiled but didn’t say anything else.
“Should we get back?”
His eyes glanced down my body and he winked. “That’s probably a good idea.” It was that confidence under the shyness that most people failed to see. But that same confidence came and went as quickly as it appeared, and he protected himself with a wall of tires. A wall I’d spend the next five years trying to break down one tire at a time.
I liked to think that night in the canyon I knocked down a few, but in the same sense, a few were added...only with me.
CHAPTER 4
Rowan Jensen
Waiting Zone
The area where the riders (up to fifty) must wait before being called up before the start of the race.
June 22, 1997
The drive from Salt Lake City to Moab took about four hours that morning, and there was absolutely no talking from Parker or me. As you can imagine, the girl in me kept thinking he wanted a take it back or something, but he never said anything. He smiled twice and winked once but no words since he said, “That’s probably a good idea,” last night.
For a seventeen-year-old girl that was very confusing. I knew that he liked me, and I still thought his shy side was adorable but it was confusing. Here he was on summer vacation, with me, kissing me, and talking only to me. He’d asked me to go with him, and actually spoke to me in that intimate way that made me feel like I belonged to him or something.
Again, my mind was over-analyzing everything.
Before I knew it, we were arriving at the condominium Justin and Parker apparently owned since their dad died. Parker certainly wasn’t hurting for money.
Having raced as a factory rider last year in the AMA, word was that he had a hefty bank account and bought not only the truck he had with cash but also this condo.
Once we arrived, I had a feeling by the way they acted that they must have spent every summer here. They seemed comfortable as they showed us around the thirteen hundred square foot, two-bedroom condo. It came complete with its own pool and hot tub that I was totally pumped about.
That was when Addy hit me with some rather alarming news. She wanted me to share a room with Parker so her slutty ass could stay with Justin. You see, the condo was beautiful but it only had two bedrooms. Apparently Justin and Addy would occupy one room, and shy boy and I would be shacking up in the other room. My first thought involved a vision of Parker and me tangled in sheets while I tried every position I’d ever seen in Cosmo with him. That did things to my panty area, and I had to focus on other things and not panty changing things. My second thought was when did they get so close, anyway?
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Nervously, I stole a brief glance at her right before she flicked my heated cheeks.
“Why wouldn’t it be? Listen, Rowan, I’m seventeen and still a virgin.” She implied virgin as though she was the last one on the face of the planet. “I plan on changing that, and Justin is the right guy.”
“You just started having conversations with him the other day. Now you’re ready to drop your panties for him?” It wasn’t that I held onto virginity like the Holy Grail or anything, but I did believe in waiting until the right time and right person. I saw too many girls my age rushing into it only to have the guy never talk to them again. I didn’t want that for Addy or myself.
“Rowan...” Addy took a dramatic sigh and bit her lip “...Justin and I have been dating for about two months now.” She refused to make eye contact with me.
What the hell?
I didn’t say anything. What could I say? I thought I was her best friend, and she doesn’t tell me something like this?
Blinking in disbelief, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Drop
ping my bag on the floor in the kitchen, Parker and Justin shuffled in, both with confused expressions.
Addy quickly pushed them back outside onto the balcony off the living room before turning back to me. “I never meant to not tell you. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings since you were so caught up with Parker and all. You guys are so shy, and Justin is not. If it wasn’t for him, we’d be just like you two—kissing and then not speaking.”
I was about to say something before I realized what she said: kissing. Last night when we returned to the campground, neither one of us said anything. I wasn’t about to tell her in the car this morning with Parker sitting right there.
How did she know?
“Parker told Justin.” She answered my unspoken question. “Justin told me.”
Well shit.
I could see Justin and Parker on the balcony outside leaning against the railing talking. Parker’s dark gray T-shirt moved with the subtle wind. His white hat made the strands of curled chocolate hair peeking out the sides noticeable.
“What did he say to him?” My eyes stilled on Parker until Addy squealed in delight.
Addy lived for gossip and faithfully watched Jerry Springer. She thought that shit was real and would argue with you if you told her it wasn’t.
She jumped on the counter in the kitchen and spilled. “Well, last night when they were in their tent, Parker told him he kissed you.” Her eyes widened with animation. “He told Justin how much he liked it and hoped you did too.”
My checks flushed in a way that made the blistering Utah sun feel like the fucking moon. “Anything else?” I squeaked out, breathing deeply.
“Well...” she pulled her legs up on the counter with her “...he told Justin he was glad we came with them.”
This made me feel better. Since we left, Parker and I had only spoken few words to each other and now we’d kissed. That wasn’t exactly my way of relationship building. I mean honestly, it sounded like something you did in grade school. Was he going to pass me a note asking me to check no or yes and then give it to Justin to give to Addy to give to me?
